


A Deed knocks first at Thought

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Marriage, Nurses & Nursing, Post-Canon, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Tea-time at the Foster's house.





	

“May I offer you more cake, Miss Jenkins? Or tea? I can’t imagine you take much time to have a meal,” Mary said, without any officiousness or preening. If anything, Charlotte thought she was somewhat anxious and she didn’t know Mary Foster well enough to know why. They’d only worked together briefly before she’d fallen ill and then been sent away; she’d returned after several weeks but not to Mansion House. She and her aunt had settled in this rented house on Prince St. and shortly thereafter, Dr. Foster had announced the dissolution of his first marriage and that he and the former Baroness had wed in a private ceremony. It had seemed precipitous, unseemly by any measure, and there had been talk around the hospital but not as mean-spirited as Charlotte would have thought. Mary had been a general favorite, except with the spiteful English nurse, and Dr. Foster may have been demoted to Executive Officer by Major McBurney’s arrival, but he’d never stopped being the man the staff and patients all looked to as their leader. Mary had been in a sort of retirement since coming back to Virginia and gossip had died down quick enough that it was barely remembered; now she was spoken of with great amiability and her reign recalled wistfully. 

Charlotte had been surprised to receive the invitation to tea and inclined to refuse, but she’d mentioned it to Samuel and been startled by the firmness of his tone when he suggested she reconsider, intrigued by the expression in Belinda’s eyes when the older woman had told her it wouldn’t hurt her to sit a spell in a fine house and be waited upon for a change. She was glad she had listened to them both; the cake had been rich, fragrant with vanilla, and the tea offered with a pot of clover honey Mary must have brought back with her from Boston. The sitting room was sunny, with a pleasant aspect, well-worn books in a glass-fronted case but also piled neatly on a table in place of china ornaments and there were a pair of framed drawings of hands above the mantle, the most unusual portraiture Charlotte had ever seen. She still did not know why Mary Foster had asked her to call, but she did not regret the time away from the camp.

“You’d be right about that and I do appreciate it. The meal and the company,” Charlotte replied, smiling to try and set Mary at ease. There was a subtle change in her posture, a light in her eyes that contrasted with the formality of her elegant dress, the elaborate braids in a black silk snood.

“I am pleased. I made a second cake for you to take back with you, so you mustn’t stint yourself, you know,” Mary said, nudging the plate with the cut cake towards Charlotte. “You have perhaps wondered at my invitation. I would have liked to ask you sooner but I was not well when I first came back and then, I had to make sure the household was in proper order after my aunt went back to Boston. I hope you will accept my apology for the delay.”

“I will but it isn’t necessary,” Charlotte said. It seemed Mary had thought far more about her than she had about Mary, other than to offer up a simple prayer when she’d first left, a brief acknowledgement upon her return.

“I think it is. That it ought to be. You are aware that I am no longer the Head Nurse at Mansion House. Miss Dix does not allow married women to inhabit that role, though I may offer my services as any matron might and I mean to, but though I may not be Head Nurse, I still remember my former obligations and I would ask you to consider whether I might be a sort of deputy to you, since I cannot offer the resources of the hospital, only the work of my own two hands and my honest conviction,” Mary explained earnestly. Charlotte picked up her tea-cup and drank it to the honey-sweet dregs, then set it down again.

“Well, I’ve seen what that amounts to…and I’d be glad of it and your help, whatever other form it may take. Dr. Foster doesn’t mind though?” Charlotte said, watching Mary closely, observing the flash in her dark eyes, the appearance of a pair of dimples the doctor was surely fond of.

“He knew who I was when he married me. I suppose he’d only mind if I were any different, though he does fuss rather about me taking on too much,” Mary said forthrightly, shrugging a little at the end. “He knew about our visit today and my intentions and he only made one request, that I ask you if there are any likely girls we might hire to help our housekeeper Julia. We would offer wages above room and board so she might put some money by and we can spare her so she may still attend your school and the church service she chooses.” It didn’t take Charlotte a minute to think of who she’d send to work in Mary Foster’s kitchen, the mute girl with the big eyes, who never trembled but could be still like a stone, though she was quick about her work and not one to shirk any chore.

“That’s easily arranged, Mrs. Foster, and it would truly put me at ease over the girl I have in mind, Keturah. She’s had a hard time of it and the camp life doesn’t suit her,” Charlotte said.

“Won’t you call me Mary?” 

Charlotte looked at her, how her hands were clasped almost as if in prayer, how intently she regarded the woman across from her and how eager her tone had been. She thought of how Samuel had spoken of her and how much kinder Dr. Foster had been since his return, thoughtful about the patients in her camp hospital in a way he hadn’t been before, and who Mary’s enemies had been—the arrogant nurse, the erratic, malevolent Major. She knew if she said no, Mary would be chastened but not angry, not offended. She looked at the sketches of Jed Foster’s hands hanging on the wall and wondered who had made them.

“If you’ll call me Charlotte,” she said, enjoying the broad smile on Mary’s face, the knowledge that Keturah would be tended well enough she might actually speak again, anticipating the nod Samuel would give her when she told him about the visit. And then she cut another slice of cake.

**Author's Note:**

> I was interested in a non-romantic pairing and more "screen" time for Charlotte. And cake.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
